This could take a while

by little red pen

The Cat has decided that he would like to write a book. I offered to help him, and that usually means typing as he dictates. We started tonight and it fairly quickly emerged that this was to be a book about soccer, specifically a World Cup co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia. The teams will be All-Stars teams with the best players of all time from each qualifying country.

We got through the first part of Chapter One tonight, and this is how it went:

France vs Brazil

Brazil kick-off. Garrincha passes to Pelé, who blasts the ball over Barthez from the halfway line, but it hits the crossbar and it goes in over Gylmar’s head for an own goal. Garrincha passes to Pelé again, who passes to Tostão, who dribbles it around the entire French team, including the keeper, but then he whacks it over the crossbar when it should have been a tap-in. Barthez boots the ball upfield from the goal kick and scores. The teams do lots of passing (and tackling) around the pitch until it’s halftime.

A streaker goes on the pitch and kicks the ball in the Brazilian goal. Amazingly, the goal counts. Brazil do quite a lot of shots, but don’t seem to get anywhere until in the 87th minute Pelé takes a shot from the edge of the area and it flies into the top corner. Then it’s a France kick-off and Ribéry immediately gets tackled by Garrincha. He starts dribbling the length of the field, but Ribéry slide-tackles him from behind and gets sent off. The resulting free kick is closer to the halfway line than the penalty area. Pelé takes the free kick and it looks like it’s going out for a throw in, but then it swerves into the bottom corner of the goal like a missile. Pelé tackles Zidane near the touchline and whacks it in the goal from range. Pelé gets a hat-trick. Then with the last kick of the game after a Vieira cross and an Henry flick-on header, Zidane bicycles it in off the post, then the crossbar, then the other post, then the keeper’s leg, and in.

Score: France 4 Brazil 3

Typing this up took about 40 minutes, with frequent breaks to change players, modify the play, and correct my spelling and use of accents.

About halfway through, I confirmed my suspicions: this book is going to be a rundown of every match in this fictitious tournament. We did some quick calculations and worked out that we’ll be doing 80 matches.